


to be still

by bastardly_deeds



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Forced Prostitution, Gen, M/M, Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:47:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24444586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastardly_deeds/pseuds/bastardly_deeds
Summary: At an asylum in the northern part of the Empire, a young man is made to earn his keep.Years later, Caleb Widogast recovers some memories he didn't know he had lost.
Relationships: Caleb Widogast/Original Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	to be still

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://criticalkink.dreamwidth.org/3194.html?thread=888186#cmt888186) on the Critical Role kinkmeme in early 2019, as reflected by backdating (before the Caleb/Bren name reveal, hence using the name "Caleb Widogast" for when he was institutionalized). 
> 
> See endnotes for more extensive warnings.

Meg's the one who handles the logistics of their little side-operation, but Andras is the one with the eye for talent. He knows from the moment he lays eyes on Caleb Widogast that the newest patient is going to make them a good amount of money. The boy's pretty, for one thing, and quiet, for another. He won't meet anyone's gaze for very long, but that's no problem, really. It makes him seem demure. Shy. The kind of clientele Meg finds will like that. They might be able to pass him off as a virgin, maybe even more than once. (And maybe he _is_ a virgin. They have no way of knowing.)

There's no family on record, either. That kind of information is kept mainly in case of death, so they know who to contact about the body. Caleb is bound for a pauper's grave when the time comes. What that means in the interim, though, is that he's unlikely to have any visitors. He’s unlikely to have anyone coming to check in on him. He doesn't have to be kept in pristine condition; if he's a little bruised up, all they have to do is tell the other workers he was getting unruly and had to be subdued. 

Caleb doesn't seem quite aware enough to cause them any actual trouble. He mostly stares into the middle distance. He can dress himself and eat and attend to his personal business, which is more than a lot of the other inmates, but those things are done by rote. He's like an automaton. 

They learn something else about Caleb just before they bring him his first nighttime visitor. He doesn't resist when they strip him. But when Meg gets him ready (as she usually does, in case the clients are feeling impatient), Caleb covers his mouth with his hands. 

“That’s interesting,” she says. “I think someone's trained him to be quiet.” Caleb's breathing quickens as she opens him up, but he makes no other sound. 

“So much for saying he's a virgin,” Andras says. “That’ll be a hard sell now.” 

“Not necessarily,” Meg says. “All of our little projects have had their quirks. We'll just say this is his. And maybe that's really all it is — he's not about to tell us, is he?” She pinches Caleb's cheek. He turns his head a little away, but keeps silent. Doesn't fight back. “Oh, you're a treasure, sweetheart.” 

The first person who has him on their watch is a nobleman’s son — a lordling who could have his pick of the village youths but prefers the security of fucking people who don't have the option of refusal or the ability to blackmail him. He's not especially gentle. Caleb endures the man’s attentions without a sound and only a little resistance. He doesn't like being turned face-down and having an arm twisted behind his back, but then, who would? The position is too awkward for Caleb to cover his mouth with his free hand, so he bites down on the pillow instead. 

“Take it,” the man snarls. “You little whore.” Caleb is. Caleb does. He doesn't quite cry, but his eyelashes are damp by the end of it, and that's enough to convince his suitor for the night that Caleb had been innocent. Untouched. They get the extra coin for it and Andras wonders in a vague way if it was true, and whether the boy will act different now, if it was. If he’ll give the scheme away somehow.

“Shh, love, I’m just going to tidy you up a bit,” Meg says. Caleb doesn't want to be touched. “Get you nice and clean, and here's a salve that will make it all better.” She used to work as a nursemaid when she was younger, so she's said. Andras can't imagine what those children grew up to be like. But the cadence of her voice soothes Caleb a bit — at least enough to uncurl from where he's clutching his knees to his chest, white-knuckled. Meg wipes him down and applies some salve and he settles under her hands. By the time she's done, he's calm enough to let Andras stroke his hair when he tucks him in. A good boy. A good find. 

The first problem arises when Caleb refuses to eat the next day. Andras mostly has the evening and night shifts, as does Meg, but he hears one of the other workers talking about it when he comes in. 

“It won't kill him to miss a day's meals,” Trudy says. “It’s never hurt any of us, has it? And we all have, with wages like ours.” 

“It’ll kill him if he keeps on like that, and if we let our charges die off, then some of us are likely to be turned out,” Meg says. A little too sharply, maybe, for someone with a reputation for kindness. “And then it’s no wages, isn't it? So we’d better look after them.” Andras doesn't say anything. He doesn't have any kind of reputation. But he thinks about the fact that they might be told to force-feed the boy if he keeps refusing to eat, and it’s easy to damage something important that way even when you're trying to be careful. So it’d be in everyone's best interests if Caleb starts eating again. Especially Caleb's. 

Meg talks to Caleb that night.

“You’ve got to eat, sweetheart,” she says. He looks at her without comprehension. But Andras he sees something searching there, too, like he knows he should understand what she’s telling him. The kitchen is closed up for the night, the pantry locked to prevent workers from skimming off the stores, so they can't get anything to see if he’ll eat now. 

“I think maybe he doesn't speak Common,” Andras says. “His name’s Zemnian, isn't it? Maybe we should ask Moritz to try to talk to him.” 

“No, he’d have tried speaking his own language by now, if that were true,” Meg says. And she’s smarter than him, older than him, but Andras doesn't think she's right. 

“Maybe he doesn't speak at all — we’ve seen that — and only _understands_ Zemnian,” Andras says, reframing it. Meg frowns, but not in disapproval. Considering the idea. 

“That may as be true,” she says. “My only concern is that he might manage to get something across, if a language barrier is part of the problem.” 

“Moritz is on the morning crew,” Andras says. “If we stay a little late today, we can be there when he talks to Caleb.” Caleb isn’t looking at Meg anymore, now that she’s not talking to him. He’s looking at the small window. At the night sky. 

Moritz is probably the best worker the institution employs. (A lot of people would say that’s Meg, but those people don’t actually know her well.) He’s a big man, over six feet, and with enough muscle to restrain most patients without aid. But he speaks softly, slowly, and unless there’s a sign of violence, he treats patients with the gentleness that he might a kitten.

“Hallo, Caleb,” Moritz says. He’s a little early for his shift. Dawn’s still a ways off. But when Meg asked a favor of him, he was happy to help. “Verstehst du mich?” At the sound of his name, Caleb looks up. He doesn’t quite meet Moritz’s eyes, but he watches Moritz’s mouth as he speaks. “Kannst du nicht sprechen?” No response. Not a nod, or a shake of the head: just continued attention. 

Andras lets his own attention wander. He doesn’t speak Zemnian, and it doesn’t seem like Caleb’s on the verge of a breakthrough. Or on the verge of denouncing him and Meg, however indirectly. At the end of a few more minutes of one-sided conversation, Moritz looks up at them and shakes his head. 

“I think he knows the sound, but he doesn’t seem to get any meaning from it,” Moritz says. “I’m sorry.” He reaches out and pats Caleb’s hand. Caleb allows it. He’s retreating back to the barely-present state where he spends most of his time. There’s nothing more to be learned. 

When Andras comes in for his next shift, he gets the good news that Caleb is eating again. Moritz is credited with cheering the boy by speaking Zemnian around him. It was Andras who came up with trying Zemnian, but no one knows that, and no one ought to. The less people connect him particularly with Caleb, the better. 

Meg has two more visitors lined up in quick succession. They almost never do more than one night in a row — it’d be stupid to establish a pattern that might be noticed. But Meg likes the idea of selling off Caleb’s virginity more than once, and the longer they wait, the more likely word is to get around that there’s someone new on offer. 

The second visitor is a middle-aged clerk with a particular fondness for plucking tender buds from the vine. He’ll pay more than double for virgins between fifteen and twenty-five, regardless of gender and attractiveness. It’s just luck of the draw that Caleb’s pretty, too. 

The clerk has Caleb on his back. Caleb tries pushing at his shoulders to get him off, but doesn't put up a real fight, and quickly lapses into his usual inattentiveness. The clerk doesn't seem bothered by it. He keeps up his steady, methodical thrusting and murmurs something to him. Caleb doesn't respond — of course he doesn't. Until he makes a little sound, which seems to startle him, and Caleb presses a hand over his mouth. The clerk pries his hand away and murmurs something else. Caleb bites his lip instead and stays silent. 

The next night is Nina, who keeps her clothes on. She even keeps her gloves on. The game, for her, is one of pushing past limits. She wrings several orgasms out of Caleb with her hands, in him and on him, until he's long since run dry. Her refusal to let up reduces Caleb to weeping where the young nobleman’s roughness couldn't. He tries to cover his face with his hands and she doesn’t let him; she takes hold of one wrist and twists until he yields. She presses that hand into the sheets beside his head so she can see half of Caleb’s tear-streaked face and his mouth opened in a series of wet, helpless gasps. 

“I like him,” she says to Andras afterward in the hall. She slips off her gloves (fine, soft leather) and gives them to him to burn, as she always does. (Andras imagines she must be very rich, to own so many pairs of gloves she doesn't mind throwing away.) “I’m not sure he was a virgin, but I’ll let that pass.”

“It’s hard for us to know,” Andras says. “Just our best guess.” Nina smiles thinly, but she pays what she promised. 

It takes a long time for Caleb to settle enough to sleep after that. Later, Andras hears that Caleb didn’t eat the day after Nina’s visit, either. He thinks maybe it’s to do with rough handling. With being hurt. Sure, Caleb hadn’t _liked_ the clerk’s attentions, but he hadn’t really been _there_ for all of them. He drifted off. It’s something to keep in mind for the future. Meg will want to know so that she doesn’t schedule anyone whose tastes will be too taxing too close together. Caleb will be examined more closely if his eating habits change drastically. 

Once or twice a week. That’s how they usually do it, and Caleb gets more than a few repeat visitors. Andras was right. People like him. It’s not any single thing that keeps them coming back: not the wide blue eyes, the trim body, the coppery hair, the sweet bow of his mouth. Not even the way he’s quiet and biddable. It’s the way those pieces fit together. 

Caleb recognizes Meg and Andras now. He recognizes them, but it’s not clear whether he has any real association between the two of them and the other people who come to see him at night. He tries to stay quiet and usually succeeds. He’s more fragile now, though, than he was at first. More prone to crying when it’s over. 

“Who do you think he was?” Andras says. He and Meg aren’t friends, exactly, but Andras isn’t exactly friends with anyone. And they have shared interests. 

“Oh, I bet you have some ideas, or you wouldn’t have brought it up,” Meg says. 

“My first guess would’ve been some noble’s bastard,” Andras says, “but they wouldn’t have waited this long to send him away, if he was always simple-minded. I wonder if he took a blow to the head.” 

“See, I thought at first that he’d been someone’s plaything,” Meg says. “What with the way he keeps quiet. Tossed aside when a new toy caught their eye, as it were. But now I’m not so sure.” The road back to town is quiet this time of morning. The horizon is only just beginning to glow with the coming dawn. There’s no fear of being overheard. 

“I don’t know that he was taught to keep quiet for sex,” Andras says. Meg hums her agreement. 

“I think you’re right about that. I think you’re right about his mind, too, though I’m not sure it was an injury.” Winter is on its way. The mud of the road has stiffened to ice overnight, though it’s still warm enough to thaw out during the day. Andras needs a new pair of boots before the bitter cold sets in. Caleb will be paying for them. “I heard from Trudy that he arrived in a closed carriage, with a cloak on,” Meg goes on. “He must be important to somebody with funds.”

“A closed carriage,” Andras repeats. “Any crest on it?” 

“Not that she noticed, but she’s a nitwit,” Meg says. “Something to think about, anyway. He’s got no family on record, no visitors, but someone willing to pay his fees.” Someone who wants him alive and away from the world, but doesn’t want to have to look at him. Caleb is being kept like a secret. Out of sight. 

He fades slowly but noticeably. He gets thinner, paler, like a painting left in the sun — except Caleb is suffering from almost the opposite circumstance. The window in his room is small, and barred, and too high up for him to open himself. (Not that Andras really thinks he’d try.) This does not diminish the considerable interest in him. Why would anyone who didn’t want to fuck an invalid pay for the pleasure of a nighttime visit in the first place? And in candlelight, under moonlight, a certain pallor can seem alluring rather than sickly. 

The young nobleman is a repeat visitor. Perhaps he imagines Caleb as his own kept boy instead of a whore whose company can be bought by anyone who knows where to ask. It’s not long before he wants to indulge tastes slightly stranger than the cruelty that comes naturally along with his station in life. Nothing too wild; nothing that would leave very clear evidence. But when he asks that Caleb be bound for his pleasure, there’s no reason to refuse. It’s something that’s been routine or even necessary with other patients in the past, in their little side-line. 

It’s the first time Caleb gives them any real trouble. 

The first wrist goes just fine. He’s paying as much attention as he ever does, but he doesn’t put up a fight until it becomes clear that he’s going to be tied to both sides of the headboard. Then Andras has to hold him still for Meg to finish the job. Caleb still isn’t loud, though he’s louder than he usually is. He moans low in his throat. Quiet but deeply frightened. Meg shushes him, tries to get him to lay back against the mattress. They leave him alone for about five minutes, to make sure everything is ready for their client. 

When they get back, Caleb has dislocated one shoulder and bitten through the skin of the opposite wrist. He’s also gotten completely free of the ropes. He sits curled in on himself at the other end of the bed, staring wide-eyed at nothing. 

Meg slaps him, which is about as shocking as the fact that Caleb has gotten loose. Meg almost never employs force, even in their private business venture. It’s why she has such a reputation for sweetness when that couldn’t be further from the truth. She pulls a handkerchief from her pocket and rolls it up. 

“Bite down,” she says. Caleb doesn’t respond. She pries his mouth open and gets most of it between his teeth before bracing both hands on his shoulder and looking back at Andras. “What are you waiting for? Help me fix this.” 

Andras does his best. He only has rudimentary medical training as required by the job. It takes a couple of tries to get the angle right, but he does finally get the joint set. Caleb has gone back to being quiet. He makes a soft sound around the handkerchief like a cough, or like choking, and tears spill down his face. That’s all. Meg lets up on him and goes off to find disinfectant and some bandages for the wrist. 

“Why this?” Andras asks. “Why now?” Caleb shrinks from him, ducking his head and avoiding his gaze more conspicuously than usual. “Something happened to you,” he says, and rests his hand atop Caleb’s head. Caleb makes another soft sound, enough like the last for Andras to worry that he’s actually choking. He eases the handkerchief out of Caleb’s mouth. Caleb sags against him and shudders. 

“Wrist,” Meg says briskly. She has a roll of bandages in one hand and a bottle in the other.

“You know he can’t understand you,” Andras says. Meg rolls her eyes. 

“Well, _you_ can,” she says. Andras obliges her and takes hold of Caleb’s forearm. Caleb turns his face to hide it against his shoulder. He is quiet, quiet, quiet. 

“We’ll have to send the company away,” Andras says. Caleb makes a sound against his shoulder like murmuring, but the sounds aren’t quite uniform enough to be any real language. 

“Sweet on him, are you?” Meg says. She wipes down Caleb’s bloody wrist and sets to fixing it up. To Caleb, she says in her usual soft matronly voice, “Have you bewitched him, hmm? Have you been locked up for casting spells you shouldn’t?” 

“It’s not to his tastes, is all,” Andras says. The blood and crying will put the young nobleman off. He might even lose his appetite for these games permanently. Because what he wants is someone who isn’t _entirely_ willing, but who will submit to his appetites without complaint. He wants the spousal ideal he was raised to expect without any of the consequent responsibilities of marriage. He’s cruel, but not especially violent. That difference is important.

“No, you’re right,” Meg says. “If Nina lived closer, I’d have her over instead. She’d like him this way. But to get there and back is a good two hours. That’s cutting things too close.” She pets Caleb’s hair absentmindedly, and his nonsense mumbling trails off. He doesn’t tense, but he goes still under her hands. “I’m sorry I lost my temper,” she says to him. “You gave me a shock, is all.” 

“He’s scared,” Andras says. “I don’t like what that means. He understands cause and effect — he might be getting better. And what will we do, if he does?”

“Fear acts on everyone the same way,” Meg says dismissively. “He’s like a little child. Children learn to fear the rod before they understand punishment. Being afraid doesn’t mean he understands. Does it, sweetheart?” Caleb is relaxing out of that uneasy stillness. He darts a glance at Meg. One of the looks easily mistaken for shy interest, when really he’s just skittish. “There you are, love. We’ll get you settled down to sleep. No visitors tonight.” She looks over at Andras. “Unless you want to have a go.”

It feels like a test. It feels like a test even after he’s said _no_ quite honestly. Andras can look at Caleb and see what other people will see, certain facets of what will make them want him. And yet he doesn’t want Caleb for himself. Fucking the boy wouldn’t be a hardship, but it wouldn’t be a real source of pleasure, either. He thinks of what he would most like to take from Caleb and is unsettled by the sudden self-knowledge. Andras most wants Caleb like this. A warm body next to his, dependent. Helpless. He doesn’t want to do anything about it, to take it any further, but there’s a strange satisfaction in knowing that it would be easy because Caleb trusts him. Maybe trusts him more than Meg. 

Andras and Meg have to wait and give a report, since someone was injured. Meg has a clear and logical chain of events to explain it. They’d found Caleb trying to hurt himself, and had to restrain him for his own good. He’d hurt his shoulder in a panic, trying to get away. They’d done their best not to hurt him — everyone understood that these things happened from time to time. When he’d calmed down, they’d untied him, and Andras stayed to keep watch while Meg made the rest of their rounds. That last part was mostly true, with the addition of the fact that Meg had gone out to the road to send the young nobleman away. The explanation took time. It was after dawn by the time they made the walk back to town together.

“I think Caleb was a spy,” Meg says. “I’m almost sure of it now.”

“How d’you figure?” Andras says. Meg starts counting points off on her fingers. 

“One: he knows to keep quiet. They’d teach a spy that, for torture, and I imagine this might seem like a kind of torture for him.” A grim way of looking at it, but not unreasonable. “Two: somebody’s paying to keep him alive and out of the way. You’d want to keep an enemy that way, in case of an opportunity for a prisoner exchange or something like that.” She must have spent a good deal of time thinking about this. “Three: he knows how to get out of ropes. I think that’s something they’d teach, too. And four: torture can break people, can’t it? And if not that, there’s magic that can. It would be an easy way to keep him from causing any more trouble.”

“Alright,” Andras says, though he’s not sure he agrees with the entire theory. “Where would he be from, then?”

“Xhorhas,” Meg says. “Where else?”

“He doesn’t look Xhorhasian,” Andras says. Meg snorts. 

“They’re not all drow, you clod. They’ve got humans over there. Not so many as here, but they do. And they’d make for better spies, since they won’t be watched as closely in the Empire.” Meg raises her eyebrows and smiles archly. She seems to be under the impression that she has won an argument. Well, let her think so. 

“Alright,” Andras says again. Silence falls for a little while, but curiosity gets the better of him. “What are you going to do, if he is a spy? Or was, anyway.”

“I think that information could be worth something,” Meg says. “Might take a few days and poke around in Rexxentrum. See if there’s anything to it.” Correctly interpreting his answering silence as skepticism, she adds, “I _do_ know some people, you know.”

“Well, I don’t, so I’m having trouble understanding how it’d work,” Andras says. 

“You just leave it to me,” Meg says, and taps the side of her nose. “Keep on as usual while I’m away, and maybe there’ll be something in it for you.” 

It’s another two months before Meg gets her trip organized. At first she’s a little too focused on her new idea, and not enough on the details of the usual operation. She makes the mistake of letting two travelling merchants have a go at Caleb at the same time despite the fact that she’s usually very strict about not allowing more than one visitor. That alone would be bad enough, but on top of that, they’re rough with him. Caleb has a hard time smothering his involuntary sounds of discomfort. He’s bruised and tear-streaked when they’re through with him, shaking with exhaustion. 

“This is bad,” Andras says. “Someone will notice.”

“But no one will _care_ ,” Meg snaps. “I made a mistake. You don’t have to hammer on the point.” She cleans Caleb up as she usually does. He holds still for it, maybe because he’s too tired to do anything else. She’s still irritated when she heads off to make her rounds and check on the rest of the inmates. Andras stays with Caleb. He rides the uneasy swell of possessiveness that comes when Caleb clings to him and weeps softly into his shoulder. What does it mean, that he has no inclination to hurt Caleb, but likes him best after he’s been hurt?

It probably means nothing. Andras is an ordinary sort of man. Not simple, but not clever. What he wants must therefore be just as ordinary.

Caleb doesn’t eat the day after that particular visit, of course. He’s thin enough now that more attention is paid when he doesn’t eat. He doesn’t eat the day after that, either, which leaves him weak and listless. There’s no food to be had in the building at night, as ever, but Andras brings a flask of barley water with him. Caleb refuses at first. Andras takes a drink himself, to prove that it’s safe, and then Caleb accepts it. Not as good as broth would be, but better than nothing. Meg regards the exchange with a mixture of suspicion and amusement. Like she knows something Andras doesn’t and she isn’t sure she likes it. 

He doesn’t interfere with the business, though, so she keeps her criticisms to herself. The nighttime visits continue on as they have been. Meg and Andras discover that Caleb has less recourse to get free if they bind his hands behind his back, so the young nobleman gets what he wanted after all, if a little belatedly. Caleb is plainly terrified; his suitor willfully misinterprets the sounds he makes as being born from pleasure. 

“I wish I could keep you,” he says. He grips the ropes around Caleb’s wrists and thrusts in hard. Caleb makes a little keening sound. (His mouth is tightly shut. His eyes dart around and land on nothing.) “Have you whenever I want you,” the lordling goes on breathlessly. He’s a stupid callow youth not much older than Caleb himself. Andras reminds himself of this to keep from getting angry. Something must show in his face anyway, because the young nobleman regards him nervously as he leaves.

“You’re getting attached,” Meg says as she cleans Caleb up. “You never have before.” They’ve had three others before Caleb, working together. Never more than one at a time; never more than two years for each. 

“Maybe,” Andras says. “I don’t know why.” 

“As long as it doesn’t get in the way, I don’t care,” Meg says. 

“It hasn’t yet,” Andras says. Meg hums noncommittally. Andras finds he’s looking forward to her trip to Rexxentrum, if only because he needs a break from the insinuations. 

The first week Meg’s gone, she has two visitors scheduled in advance. She doesn’t expect to be away for more than two weeks at most. Andras handles things well enough on his own. It’s safer to have two people, in case of any mishap, but it’s not strictly necessary under most circumstances. 

The second week Meg’s gone, Andras sticks to doing his actual job. He’s not the one who finds the clients. He never has been. So he does his rounds, makes sure the doors are locked, looks in on the patients that tend to have problems at night. He waits to hear from her. No letter comes, so he thinks she must be on her way back. 

The third week Meg’s gone, Moritz seeks Andras out. He comes in early, as Andras is getting ready to leave. 

“I wanted to speak with you,” Moritz says. Andras nods. “About the young man, the Zemnian. Widogast.” 

“What about him?” Andras says. He tries to sound curious rather than brusque. 

“Lately I’ve wondered if he’s being…” Moritz trails off, hesitant. Andras waits. “Ill-used,” Moritz says finally. He’s visibly uncomfortable. Probably a good thing, since it means the conversation will be short. “He reacts badly to being touched, in a way he didn’t used to. There have been bruises. And… other signs. It’s happened before. You weren’t working here yet, but there was a girl. Addled, but not violent. Young, like this one. Perhaps eighteen when she was committed. She had a child after she had been here two years. No visitors to blame for it.” 

Maybe that was why Meg had been so adamant about getting a little token that had been charmed by a cleric to ward off pregnancy and disease. She might have learned her lesson the hard way. 

Moritz leans back against the wall, sighing. “I don’t like to admit this, as it feels dishonest, but I’ve been paid to keep an eye on him.”

“We’re all paid to keep an eye on all of them,” Andras points out. Not because he doesn’t understand, but because he wants to hear Moritz admit it. 

“I’m being paid privately,” Moritz says. “To look out for Caleb.” Dropping the pretense of not knowing Caleb’s name. That’s interesting. “We’re paid so little, you know, that when I was approached about this, I felt I couldn’t refuse.” Andras nods again. Oh, yes, he knows. He’s not the only one with new boots this winter. 

“Why’d you come to me about it?” Andras says. 

“Because I think you care for him,” Moritz says. He smiles a little. “He’s easy to care for, isn’t he? I think that must be why you asked me to try to talk to him.”

“I guess so,” Andras says. “He’s no trouble.”

“Except to himself,” Moritz says. “He eats poorly. Have you seen?”

“I’ve noticed him getting thinner, yeah,” Andras says. “Doesn’t seem like a good sign.”

“Will you let me know if anything seems amiss?” Moritz says.

“Sure,” Andras agrees.

“Are you friends with her, the other night attendant? Margret, I think.” Meg, he means. Andras isn’t friends with her because he doesn’t have friends, and he doesn’t have friends because he doesn’t think he’s capable. Sometimes he feels like a mask with nothing behind it. Hollow, like an echo chamber. Maybe he likes Caleb so much because Caleb doesn’t look any deeper than the surface. The mask is enough for him. 

“Not friends, no,” Andras says. 

“He’s been better since she left,” Moritz says. “I wonder if she was part of it. An accomplice.”

“That’s a big accusation,” Andras says. 

“Ah, but who am I accusing? She’s not here.” He says it like he knows she’s not coming back. Maybe he does. Probably he does. It seems like there’s a good chance that whoever’s paying him is in Rexxentrum, and just as good a chance that Andras isn’t the first one Moritz has voiced these suspicions to. “I don’t mean to imply anything about you, my friend,” Moritz says with another smile, clapping Andras on the shoulder. “She was canny, that one. I imagine she could have hid what she was doing.”

“I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, I know,” Andras says. 

“But you’re not stupid,” Moritz says. “So you’ll tell me if anyone comes poking around in the night, looking for her, won’t you?”

“Of course,” Andras says.

And there’s never anything to tell. Word’s gone around that Meg hasn’t come back, and if you want to fuck someone who can’t refuse you or tell anyone else, it’s your own business to figure out where to get it. Andras isn’t inclined to pick up where Meg left off. It’s not what he’s good at. He does what he’s paid to do. And if, sometimes, Caleb wakes with nightmares and Andras offers him a shoulder to cry on until Caleb can sleep again — that’s his business, isn’t it? 

\---

Caleb Widogast has a very good memory, even where his mind is not inclined to cooperate. The body remembers what the mind does not. And, sometimes, one kind of memory leads in to the other. 

\---

He calls himself a coward, but that’s never sat quite right with Fjord. Caleb’s afraid of things, sure, and sometimes it even gets in the way. But he’s not afraid without cause. The main fact is that those causes aren’t always readily apparent.

It’s not obvious, for example, why Caleb would make a pitiful little sound when Fjord grabs him by both shoulders to shake him awake. Why he turns his head to one side as if baring his neck and otherwise goes limp. 

“What did you do to him?!” Nott demands. “Is it a spell? Undo it!” Needless to say, she’s not best pleased by the situation. 

“Was ist los?” Caleb mutters as he wakes. “Did I miss something?” He props himself up on his elbows. He’s breathing a little fast, but he seems fine. ‘ _Seems_ ’ is the operative word. Fjord knows there’s more there. Something he should look into; something he should try to learn about. 

“You got all floppy, like a doll,” Jester says. “Are you okay? I can heal you, if you’re not.” 

“I’m fine,” Caleb says. He rubs a hand down the side of his face. “I’m fine,” he repeats. Fjord doesn’t think anyone else is convinced by it, either. “Just a strange feeling, before I was all the way awake. Maybe part of a dream.”

“It happened when Fjord touched you,” Nott points out. She cuts a suspicious look in his direction. Fjord rolls his eyes a little and holds up his hands placatingly.

“I’m used to sleeping on my side, I think,” Caleb says. “So I was a little, ah — verwirrt? As you can tell.” He smiles wryly. There’s a little twitch to it, like his lips want to tremble underneath the expression. “Confused, I mean to say.”

“Yeah, okay,” Beau says. She sounds as skeptical as Fjord feels; as skeptical as Nott looks. But none of them force the point. Jester can’t help herself at dinner, though, when Caleb turns down his third meal in a row. 

“Caleb, you have to eat!” she says, and points at him with her spoon. “Or if you’re sick, you have to let us take care of you!”

“I have no appetite today,” he says. “It’s nothing, Jester. I’ll eat when I’m hungry.” 

“If you don’t want stew, we can make you something else,” she insists. “A calm food, like — I don’t know. Oats? Do we have oats?”

“For the horses, but I don’t think those are people food,” Beau says. “We could do rice, though.”

“Thank you, no,” Caleb says firmly. He stands up. “I should set up the alarm. It will be dark soon.” 

“Why is he _like_ this?” Jester fumes. 

“Hmm,” Caduceus says. “I get the feeling he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“Yeah, no shit, even I’m getting that feeling,” Beau says. 

Caleb does come back to sit with them, though, after he’s set up his thread. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

“It’s fine,” Nott says. She sounds upset, though. “It’s your business.”

“It is, but —” Caleb presses a hand to his forehead and shakes his head. “I’ve felt strange all day. I think it has to do with…” He trails off. The rest of them wait. Even Beau, even Jester. They wait until he’s ready. “When I was a boy, after I was punished, I was sometimes not allowed to eat for a day,” he says. “To let the lesson sink in. To give me time to think about it.”

“Oh, Caleb,” Jester says. She sounds sad. Fjord would bet she’s never gone to bed hungry, except maybe on the road with them. She doesn’t know how goddamn _normal_ this is, for most kids, either as punishment or just rationing out what little there is. “You know you didn’t do anything wrong, don’t you? And we want you to eat! No one here would take your food from you!”

“No, of course,” Caleb says. “But it was not… enforced, after the first few times. It was something I knew was expected. And the strange feeling, it’s like knowing I’ve had my punishment and I should meditate on it.” He passes a hand over his eyes. “I don’t know why. It’s been many years.” Fjord puts a hand on his shoulder, and Caleb flinches. More than that, he presses one hand tightly over his mouth. 

They don’t talk about it again.

\---

Beau’s on watch when Caleb wakes up. He does it with a heaving gasp, like surfacing from deep water without the benefit of a spell to keep him breathing. 

“You okay over there?” she says, in the softest voice she thinks will carry far enough to reach him.

“Fine,” he says. 

“Nightmare?” Beau asks. Caleb says nothing. “I mean, as opposed to your alarm spell waking you up.” 

“No, that is fine,” Caleb says. “It was… something like a nightmare.” He sits up and turns toward what’s left of the fire. It's burned down to embers, though Beau’s been feeding it a twig now and then. It's better to have a bed of coals to build back up to cook breakfast in the morning, in case Caleb's not the first one awake. Nobody can ever seem to find the damn tinderbox with the flint in it. What's left of the fire isn't throwing too much light, but Beau's goggles mean it doesn't matter much to her. It means she can probably see what Caleb's doing better than he can. 

What he's doing is unwrapping his left wrist. And when she strains to hear it, she realizes he's murmuring to himself. She doesn't catch the whole thing, but she gets pieces. _I should have noticed a scar_ and then _shallow, wasn't it, there might not have been_ and, voice rising in volume almost to normal speech, _a dream, a dream, it doesn't have to mean anything, it is not memory or the spirit walking out but just what the brain does…_

“You want to talk about it?” Beau says. On the one hand, it sounds like he's having a really bad time, so she should offer. On the other, she's not sure she actually wants to hear about it. 

“Not really,” Caleb says. He’s not looking at her. He's re-wrapping his wrist and hand, slowly. Beau thinks: _Molly would have known what to do._ He’d probably have said something wildly inappropriate along the way, but he would have gotten to the right point in the end. Molly’s not here now. Molly's never going to be here to look after Caleb again, and Beau doesn't know what the fuck to do if Caleb doesn't give her some kind of cue. 

Which he doesn't. She keeps an eye on him until he lays back down to go to sleep. It's the best she can do. 

\---

“Do you have anything herbal to help with sleeping?” Caleb says. It’s the first watch of the night, barely full dark, but the road has worn everyone down. Those not on watch have fallen hard into sleep.

“Well, there are a number of different things that could help,” Caduceus says. He's been hoping Caleb might ask him for help, or at least ask someone for help, because he isn't doing well and the whole group is feeling it. Beau's shorter-tempered than usual; Fjord is trying to ignore it to keep moving forward and feeling guilty for that; Jester is overcompensating for the collective low mood. Nott is snappish and clingy by turns. 

And Caleb — 

Caleb's eating less than usual, and he doesn't eat much to begin with. He avoids touch as much as possible. He talks to himself in the company of others, as though he's forgotten that he's not alone. And then, of course, there's the fact that he hasn't been sleeping through the night. 

“It depends on why you’re not sleeping,” Caduceus goes on. “There are things that will settle your stomach, or get rid of a headache, or help with anxiety…” He’s running a little low on that last blend. He's been drinking it a lot himself. 

“Anything for dreamless sleep?” Caleb says with a weak smile. 

“Not specifically,” Caduceus says. “Something you want to talk about?” 

“I don't think so,” Caleb says. He doesn't sound sure. Caduceus waits. “There are bad dreams that I’m used to,” Caleb goes on hesitantly. “But lately I’ve been having dreams that are… different. They have the quality of memory, but I don’t know if they ever happened, or if they’re something my mind created because it’s what I fear might have happened.”

“Fear’s a powerful thing,” Caduceus says. He would say more, but Caleb speaks up unexpectedly.

“Fear acts on everyone the same way. He’s like a little child,” he says dully. “Children learn to fear the rod before they understand punishment. Being afraid doesn’t mean he understands.”

“Who are you talking about, Mr. Caleb?” Caduceus says. 

“Myself,” Caleb says. “That is, if I remember right — if I didn’t fabricate the memory — they were talking about me.” 

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Caduceus says. 

“The beginning,” Caleb repeats. He folds his hands in his lap and looks down at them. “The first thing you need to know is that I was put in an institution when I was a young man. I had done things — things had been done to me — that my mind couldn’t take. So I was there for a number of years, and I remember very little of that time.” It doesn’t sound like the beginning of a story. It sounds like the middle. Still, it’s where Caleb thinks it’s important to start. Caduceus nods his understanding. “Lately, I have had… involuntary reactions. Dreams. A number of suggestions pointing toward the possibility that I was taken advantage of during that time.” His tone has gone flat, formal-sounding. “I assume you know what that phrase implies, but if not, I can go into more detail.”

“I lived in the woods, Mr. Caleb, not under a rock,” Caduceus says. It startles Caleb into laughing — such a small sound that Caduceus almost misses it. “Though I’m not a big fan of the term. Sounds too polite for what it means.” 

“That’s the long and short of it, then,” Caleb says. “I don’t know if these things happened, and I don’t know how to find out, and I don’t know what I can do now to, to snap myself out of the way I’ve been.” He snaps his fingers as if to illustrate the point and looks up at Caduceus. “I’m no good to anyone like this.” 

“Well, I’d disagree with that,” Caduceus says. “So let’s skip that part and work back from there. Does it matter if it really happened if it’s still affecting you this way?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Caleb says, immediately and vehemently. He looks back down at his hands, as though ashamed. He’s silent a long moment before he goes on. “Before the institution — the asylum — my memory was tampered with in order to help convince me to do something. To do the worst thing I have ever done. Being able to trust my memories is very important to me.” 

“Hmm,” Caduceus says. “Well, there are a couple of different spells that would help if your memory has been changed with magic again, but if it’s just something your mind has done on its own… I don’t know if they’ll do any good.” 

“Ja, I thought it might be something like that,” Caleb says. 

“Couldn’t hurt to try,” Caduceus says. “It’s the end of the day. I’ve still got some healing left.”

“No, I think — no. Better to save it in case we’re attacked, something for the good of the group,” Caleb says. Caduceus bites back a sigh. 

“If you think this isn’t affecting everyone else, you’re being very self-centered.” Caleb looks up, bewildered. “Let me give it a try.” Caleb nods. He fixes his gaze somewhere around Caduceus’ shoulder and holds still. He flinches a little when Caduceus rests a hand on top of his head, but he doesn’t move. Caduceus murmurs a prayer. He waits. “Anything?”

“No,” Caleb says. “And thank you. It’s a little bit of a relief to know that no one else has changed my memory, even if it doesn’t solve the problem.”

“Is there anything you think might help?” Caduceus says. He takes his hand off of Caleb’s head. Caleb shrugs and pulls his coat closer around him. 

“Some things you have to live with,” he says. “I’ve learned to live with worse. The difference is that they didn’t come upon me suddenly like this. They were always there. It’s just strange, to find an old wound you didn’t know was there.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that this isn’t new for you,” Caduceus says. Because what else can he say?

“It is what it is,” Caleb says. “I’ll get it under control.” He looks down at his hands again, rubs over the bandages around his wrists. “I was young, you know? I used to be handsome. That must have been why.” Someday, Caduceus will tell Caleb that he’s still handsome, but now isn’t the time to say it. It wouldn’t help. It might even hurt.

“The way I understand it, most things like that are less about desire and more about power,” Caduceus says instead. 

“You’re probably right,” Caleb says. Then: “We’re not doing a good job of keeping watch, are we?”

“No, we’re not,” Caduceus says. “I’ll make us some tea, and we can get to it.” He settles on a blend that’s mostly rosemary. He was never entirely sure that the rosemary would winter over, but in general, it did. It does. It’s hardier than it looks.

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for long-term sexual abuse in an institutional setting, pervasive ableism, minor pragmatic self-harm (in service of an escape attempt), and disordered eating. 
> 
> I'm not sure if Caduceus had (or has) Remove Curse, but that's what he's using for fic purposes to try to dispell Modify Memory.


End file.
